Recently some Baptist preachers were arrested for acts of civil
disobedience. They were arrested for blocking the removal of a ten commandments
monument from an Alabama judicial building.

Baptists have a long history of civil disobedience and it is not
unusual for Baptists and their preachers to spend time in jail. The recent
arrests in Alabama, however, are for reasons that are opposed to the convictions
that distinguished Baptists in the past.In the
past, Baptists were imprisoned for championing religious liberty and for
advocating separation of church and state, not for protesting against it.

Thomas Helwys, one of the first Baptists, died in jail because he
had the audacity to tell the King of England that it was not his business to try
to enforce all ten of the ten commandments. Here’s the way he said it:

“Mens religion to God, is betwixt God and themselves; the King
shall not answer for it; neither may the King be judg between God and man. Let
them be heretikes, Turks, Jewes or whatsoever, it apperteyenes not to the
earthly power to punish them in the least measure.”

In his day, this thought was so radical that King James — the
same one who gave us the KJV Bible — literally locked him up and threw away the
key.

In effect, what Helwys said was — separate the two tables of the
ten commandments. Separate the commands that govern our relation to God (the
first four commands — dealing with matters of worship — the sphere of the
church) from those that govern relations between men (the last six commands —
dealing with civil matters — the sphere of the state). Helwys told the king
that he only had jurisdiction over civil matters, not religious matters. He was
insisting that church and state be separated.

The difference between Helwys and the Baptists with Judge Roy
Moore in Alabama could not be more striking. Moore’s monument symbolizes the
attempt by some modern Christians to reunite church and state by insisting that
both tables of the ten commandments are fundamental to our system of law.

To use the terms that Helwys used, all “heretikes, Turks, Jewes
or whatever” who entered that Alabama courthouse were being given clear notice
that the “earthly power” intended to serve as ‘judg between God and man.” At
the entrance to the Alabama Supreme Court, chiseled in bold letters on 2 1/2
tons of granite, there was fair warning that those who fail to worship properly
need not look for just and equitable treatment in that state.

Ironically, many Baptists are among the
supporters of Judge Moore and his monument. It signifies
how far we have fallen from the convictions that once shaped our Baptist
identity.

Contrary to what Southern Baptist mythologists like Jerry Falwell
and Rick Scarborough say, the call for separating church and state is not
derived from the constitution of the Soviet Union. Reliable historians have
long confirmed that “full religious liberty” and “separation of church and
state” are Baptist’s primary legacy to the history of Western Civilization.

But, dividing the two tables of the law did not originate with
Helwys. Jesus separated the obligations related to God from those related
to civil society when he said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s
and render to God the things that are God’s.”

What Helwys and other Baptists did was to pay the price necessary
to lead others to consider the wisdom of Jesus’ distinction and eventually write
it into the constitutions of civil government.

The Baptist legacy begins with Thomas Helwys because he was the
first Baptist who believed in the priesthood of the believer and in religious
liberty enough to die for it.

Helwys believed that relationships with God must be direct,
personal and immediate — “betwixt God and themselves.”
And, as fully empowered
believer-priests, laymen were supposed to read the Bible and interpret it for
themselves under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Knowing that he was accountable directly to God for his
convictions, Helwys did not hesitate to question the conclusions that his pastor
drew when he interpreted scripture. When he was convinced that his
pastor was leading his church astray, he became the leader of those who left the congregation.

Returning to his homeland in the midst of religious persecution,
Helwys planted the first Baptist church on English soil. Then, he openly
challenged the king who refused to let him worship according to the dictates of
his own conscience.

Helwys did not petition the king to enlist the power of the state
to force Baptist convictions on others. He petitioned the king to let everyone
worship as they pleased.

Helwys did not petition the king to erect a monument to the ten
commandments. He demanded that the king stop using the power
of the state to force
observance of the first four commandments.

Helwys’ witness did bear fruit. Others took up the cause
that he championed. Within a generation, convictions like his found
expression in the charter to the colony of Rhode Island.

In other places, however, Baptists were imprisoned or fined or
beaten. It took more than another hundred years of religious conflict and persecution
before men had the wisdom to give expression to such convictions in the First
Amendment to the Constitution. All along the way Baptists were at the vanguard
as champions of separating church and state and granting religious freedom for
all.

Tragically,
Baptists who know not Helwys now stand in the limelight of life in the
twenty-first century. By neglecting the lessons of their own history, they will
condemn future generations to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Modern Baptists need to renew their commitment to the priesthood
of every believer. Laypeople need to read the Bible for themselves and start
raising some questions with their preachers. All Baptists need to go back to
the source books for their own history and doctrine and recover an appreciation
for our legacy of church/state separation.

A good place to
begin would be with the book that landed Thomas Helwys in jail: